Regional airline body criticises transport policy

At a meeting in Luxembourg today, the board of the European Regions Airline Association has criticised the recently published European Commission White Paper for Transport, which it says has missed an opportunity to set a clear vision for the future of air transport in Europe and lacks the innovative, free market policies needed to achieve it. The association expressed significant concerns on several aspects of the paper, in particular the number of inconsistent statements on the growth of air transport and contradictory arguments.There is “a failure to recognise ongoing environmental improvements made by air transport and to address the underlying problems facing European transport.” For example, “the shortage of airport capacity will not be resolved by any EC proposal to change the EU Slot Allocation regulation, continuing to ignore the massive subsidies applied to rail.” However, the board did acknowledge some positive aspects of the paper.Airline News